He Drowned Trying To Comfort an Octopus
by thetoastlives
Summary: So, uh, Pickles/Nathan if you squint, but mostly frendship stuff. WARNINGS: cussing, unbrutal behavior, and fannon which goes unelaborated to keep this at a nice T rating.


So, uh, yeah. Pickles and Nathan. Pickles's spirit animal is a badass octopus so that's a reference right there. If you get the metaphor, fantastic. If not, you should still like this.

I may end up continuing this if I ever have free time, but the likelihood of that happening is slim to none. This is, in my opinion, a good oneshot anyhow.

Well, here you are. Review if you can, I much appreciate it.

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When the larger man found him, he was curled into a ball, shivering, tears streaming down his face, leaving small tracks of freckled white on a dirt clad countenance. He was mumbling something the other could not understand, his accent and fumbling lips assuring his words as misunderstood.

The only reason Nathan had ventured into Pickles's room was to inquire about some inane topic he had forgotten at this point. He had opened the closet door to investigate the apparent sniveling that it exuded, somehow still hitting his ears through the record that had been playing at full blast and the muffling hands that covered the mouth whose throat was keening in desperation to cry out.

He was taken aback by the pulled muscles in the drummer's face, by the inhuman little noises the older man made as he continued to muffle sobs, by the scene before him.

It was not as if he'd never seen Pickles cry. The man did it almost regularly, though it was usually accompanied by fury and balled up little fists and was drug induced. Nathan saw no needles, no lines of whatever the hell the drummer would have snorted, no pipes or anything. A solitary, half empty bottle of vodka sat beside him. He could see the other was not quite drunk, definitely not high. He was broken down, shattered, pieces of his facade strewn on the stained carpet on which the scene took place. He had never seen something so pathetic, and the state of his bandmate scared him.

Yes, the great Nathan Explosion was scared. Scared, by the scarred wrists now exposed without sweatbands. Scared, by the way all of the drummer was exposed, laid out for anyone to see, simply because the man could no longer contain himself. Scared, most of all, by the sudden need compelling him to help, despite the promise of not caring he had made so many years ago.

He saw, in that mouth open and stuffed with fingers, smile lines folding oddly with a grimace. In the eyes that refused to see the looming figure in the door in favor of a place far away, he recognized an emerald green that he had seen glitter with excitement. In a trembling body, he saw muscles and power developed for a skill he knew no one else had mastered quite like the man before him. And in a whining, cracking voice, he heard a tone that reminded him of the one used to pull clever little nothings out of thin air, weaving them into a conversation. In this destroyed, hopelessly undone figure before him, he saw a glimmer of the man he had thought he knew.

Nathan caught a few of the words the drummer was choking on. They were broken fragments of broken sentences, strung together in stuttered broken sobs, words the singer recognized he was never meant to hear, words that he knew were cycling in Pickles's head and were meant for him alone. He put pieces of a story together and wished desperately he had never found the drummer, had just let the man alone in his misery.

It all felt wrong. Leaving was wrong, staying was wrong. Knowing this was happening was wrong, and wishing he hadn't known was wrong. Deciphering words like " Didn't believe" and "Dirty faggy Pickles" and "Deserved it" coupled with "Seth" and "Run" and "help" was what Nathan tried to convince himself he wasn't hearing. He didn't know what to say, or if he should say anything. He knew he couldn't leave the older man like this. He knew he shouldn't be there in the first place.

He heard something, from a time he could barely remember.

_"Nate? Nate, why are you in Mommy's closet?"_

Nathan blinked at the voice. It was his father's. He couldn't see anything in the inkling of a memory. He just heard- heard and saw a little light in the back of his mind. It was so fuzzy he was having trouble deciphering if it had really happened-

_ Warm hands grasped shivering shoulders. The trembling lump was embraced by its discoverer._

_ "Nate-y, what's wrong?"_

Nathan found himself placing a hand on the freezing shoulder of his friend, who seized up and brushed him off.

_ "Nathan, you can tell me."_

"No Nat'an, I- I don't-"

Nathan spoke the words he remembered coming from his father's mouth.

_ "I promise it's okay. Just tell me."_

He felt his father's words matching his own, his tone and feeling identical to the one he remembered as comforting.

_ The trembling child looked upward at his caretaker. His heaving sobs ripped his throat and he tried to speak, but his words were gone before he began to look for them. The child felt guilty, he felt like he deserved to die for what happened. It had to be his fault, he knew, and he was sure the one trying to comfort him would be disgusted._

Nathan firmly grabbed the drummer's shoulders and brought him close. He, as he remembered his father doing, embraced the crying human and held him tight.

"Pickles, it's okay. It's all okay. Just... um, just let it out. It's- it's okay"

These words spilled from Nathan's lips. He found himself both disgusted and proud of his actions. He would look back and find these feelings, however, as at that moment he was only the comfort to the crying man in his arms, as he remembered in a time long ago.

_ The child's sobs slowly quieted, the wet spot on his father's shirt slowing to a halt in its growth. The pair stayed, until the child's breath regulated and the father knew it was time._

_ "C'mon, kiddo. We gotta go pick up Mommy from work."_

_ The child sniffled and said nothing._

_ "Wanna ride shotgun?"_

_ The child's day brightened and he nodded._

The memory ended. Pickles had stopped crying. His breathing was heavy and rough, but normalizing. Nathan looked down to find the drummer asleep on his chest. He decided that it would be inappropriate to wake the sleeping lump of human, or to leave him in the closet. He waited several minutes, what felt like a very long time at least, what with his shirt damp and getting cold and a pair of cowboy boots digging into his lower back.

After a while longer, he convinced himself the drummer would not want to wake up on top of Nathan after crying his eyes out and giving the singer a pretty good idea of his biggest secret. It was a secret Nathan was curious about; but one he also wanted to banish from existence because of how horrible it was.

Nathan carefully moved the drummer off of his body and stood. Still feeling rather fatherly, he slowly, gingerly picked up the drummer bridal style and carried his unconscious body out of the closet. The drummer was unceremoniously dropped onto his mattress. Nathan momentarily debated throwing a blanket over him, but decided against it as he had already done too much.

With a final glance at his bandmate, the hulking beast of a man tiptoed from the room. The door was painfully slow in its way open and closed to avoid waking the sleeper, and the usually lumbering man was graceful and silent in his travels.

He dreamed that night of trying to hug an octopus, the tentacles shooing him away and the sucker things pulling him back in. He tried to swim away, but was stuck. He woke up as his dream self drowned in the struggle. He couldn't help but feel it was prophetic.


End file.
